


Virgin Territory

by Boton



Series: Guy Talk [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Backstory, Canon, Canon Backstory, Gen, Het, No Johnlock, No Slash, Sexuality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-09
Updated: 2015-03-09
Packaged: 2018-03-17 00:51:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3509027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Boton/pseuds/Boton
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In SiB, John asks Mrs. Hudson if Sherlock has ever had "a girlfriend, a boyfriend," or some kind of relationship, wondering why he doesn't know the basics of Sherlock's past and preferences.  But by TSoT, John is unsurprised to see Sherlock in a room alone with a woman (Janine), even teasing him about managing to "pull" at John's wedding while he solved a murder.</p><p>In between those two points, there must have been a conversation between the two friends in which they talked about Sherlock's past, his sexuality, and his choice of celibacy.  This is my version of that conversation, taking place on the drive back from Dartmoor at the end of HoB.</p><p>This is part two of "Guy Talk," an on-going series of conversations that must have taken place when the cameras weren't rolling.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Virgin Territory

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Sherlock Holmes and his universe are the creation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Sherlock is the creation of the BBC and its partners, and of co-creators Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss. This work is for my pleasure and that of my readers; I am not profiting from the intellectual property of those creators listed above.
> 
> Author's Note: This is the closest I will probably ever get to putting my own head canon in the mouth of a character as dialog; in this case, Sherlock gets to tell my version of his backstory. I tend to believe that our Sherlock has managed to overthink himself right out of a sex life, but I wanted to emphasize that he is human, with human needs and desires. Please see the end notes for more information that will be hinted at in the story.
> 
> Rated T for discussions of sexuality (not explicit) and some language.

The problem with working with someone you also share a flat with, John thought, is that there’s literally nothing to talk about on long drives.  After discussing the Baskerville case at some length, the pair had fallen silent as Sherlock drove them back from Dartmoor, with John watching moodily out the window.

By now, Sherlock and John had been living in 221B for over two years, and they were comfortable with one another’s silences.  But it was different being trapped in a car together.  The usual topics mates talked about didn’t seem likely to interest Sherlock.  John considered; had he been traveling with Greg Lestrade, they probably would have talked about music, or sports, or women…

A nefarious idea crept into John’s mind.  There was, in fact, something he’d always wondered about Sherlock.  And since they were alone in a car for some time yet, it seemed the most likely time to be able to get Sherlock’s attention and hold it long enough to get an answer.  But he’d need to be delicate.

“Sherlock, mate,” John began.

“Yes?” Sherlock said curiously, looking sideways at John from behind the wheel.

“I was wondering something.”

“Clearly.”

“Well, you know when we were at Buckingham Palace,” John said.

“Which time?” Sherlock said sarkily.  “I do seem to recall sitting in Buckingham Palace wearing nothing but a sheet to spite my brother.”

“Yeah, that time,” John said with a small smile.  “Well, Mycroft seemed to suggest that you’re…that is, when he talked about Irene Adler, it seemed like he was implying….”

“Yes, John,” Sherlock said, beginning to lose patience.  “Do ask your question.”

“Well, Mycroft seemed to suggest that you were a virgin,” John blurted.

“Yes, he did,” Sherlock said enigmatically.

Not deterred, John forged on.  “And, are you?”

“If by ‘virgin,’ you mean the antiquated term to designate a person who has not engaged in sexual intercourse?” Sherlock clarified.

“Yes, that’s the ‘virgin’ I meant,” John said, starting to be sorry he’d started this line of inquiry.  “But just say the word if that’s none of my business.”

“No,” Sherlock said.

“No, it’s none of my business?” John asked.

“No, it’s none of your business, but no, I’m not a virgin,” Sherlock said.

"Really!” John said, smiling broadly.  Now he was getting somewhere.  “So why did Mycroft think you were?”

“Contrary to what he may believe, Mycroft doesn’t know everything about my life.  The last time he had reliable information – which was from me – I was, in fact, a virgin.  Events have occurred that I have failed to share with Mycroft.”

This was fantastic, John thought.  Finally, some information instead of wondering and trying not to step into verbal landmines every time the subject of relationships came up with Sherlock.  Which wasn’t often, John had to admit, but he’d grown tired of trying to construct sentences that allowed for every possible permutation of sexual experience and sound like all of it was fine.

“So you’ve had girlfriends, or, um, boyfriends, or….”  Here John trailed off, realizing he was getting in deeper by the moment.

“So, now you wish to know if I’m gay?” Sherlock asked.  “Didn’t I cover that the night we pursued Jeff Hope?  When we had dinner at Angelo’s?”

“Well, I had dinner at Angelo’s; you sat and stared out the window.  And no, you didn’t really cover that,” John said.  “You said girlfriends weren’t your area, you knew it was all fine, and that you were married to your work.  Not a lot of clarity there.”

“Hm,” Sherlock said.  “I can see where that might have lacked in specificity.”

“Yeah, you could say that,” John said.

Sherlock sighed.  “I consider myself to be heterosexual.  My sexual partners have been female.”

“’Partners’ with an ‘s,’” John repeated.

“Yes, John, the word was plural,” Sherlock said with exasperation.  “This questioning will go much more quickly if you quit clarifying every point.”

“Not clarifying, mate, just enjoying the new information,” John said.  “So, tell me; what is Mycroft missing?” John asked with a chuckle.

Sherlock sighed.  “You remember Seb Wilkes from Shad Sanderson?” he asked.

“Arsehole,” John said.

“That’s the one,” Sherlock agreed.  “When I knew Seb, it was my first year in uni, and I was, in fact, a virgin.  Seb and his friends knew it too, and they loved to rub their sexual exploits in my nose.  They’d come down for breakfast with their dates from the previous evening on their arm; the girls would be wearing their dates’ shirts or some other indication that they had shared intimacy.  There’d be bald innuendos about how drunk they had been the previous night and how many times they had managed to perform nonetheless.”

Sherlock paused, and John waited, one eye on his friend and one eye on the passing scenery.  This was the most forthcoming Sherlock had ever been about his past, and John wasn’t about to derail the conversation. 

“It was no challenge to turn the tables on them and deduce them, but that was exactly what they wanted.  They wanted to make fun of me and my inexperience,” Sherlock said, a look of pain passing behind his eyes. 

“I confessed my frustration to Mycroft, which turned out to be a tragic error.”

“Yeah, I can’t imagine that went well,” John commiserated.

“I can’t decide what was worse: hearing about Mycroft’s sex life in his ridiculous attempt to commiserate, or giving him ammunition to use against me for the next decade and a half.  But I assure you was the last time I ever talked about sex with my brother.”

John shuddered.  “Good call, that.”

Sherlock made a “hm” noise in the back of his throat in agreement.  He appeared to have retreated into his own thoughts, but John’s curiosity wasn’t quite satisfied.  “So, about these women you mentioned…” he prodded.

Sherlock looked sideways at John for so long that John didn’t know whether to expect to be told to shut up or to see Sherlock drive them off the road.  But the detective continued his story.  “My organic chem lab partner was smart, and pretty, and, surprisingly enough, interested in me.  She was my first.”

John rotated in his seat to look directly at Sherlock.  This was more honesty than he had ever thought to get from the man.

“But that encounter sparked an addiction of sorts,” Sherlock continued.  “I couldn’t get enough of the thrill of physical intimacy, and I pursued it every chance I had.  It began to pull my focus from my studies.”

“I soon figured out that I couldn’t devote myself completely to my work and still allow myself to seek physical relationships.  The physicality would always distract me from what’s important.  So I decided to become celibate,” Sherlock said.

"Let me get this straight,” John said.  “You swore off sex because, as a 20 year old guy, you were thinking more about women than about work?”

“Obviously.”

“O…kay,” John said slowly.  “And so you decided that the proper thing to do was to become celibate while you were surrounded by beautiful female students in uni?”

“Well, after graduate school,” Sherlock said with a small smirk.  “There didn’t seem any reason to change my behavior as long as I was more or less successfully juggling both sexual intimacy and my studies, and academic work has never been particularly challenging for me.  But yes, once I graduated, that was it.”

“Wow,” John said, thinking back on how frustrated he had been during some of his dry spells.  “So you haven’t had sex for ye--“

“Months,” Sherlock supplied.

“Months?” John repeated, thinking back.  But who could…?

“Irene Adler?” he said incredulously.

Sherlock drove so long in silence that John thought he’d crossed the line, and he swore not to ask another question until Sherlock said something.  Finally, Sherlock said quietly, “The Woman.  I made an exception.”

“And how was that?” John said softly.

“Exceptional,” Sherlock said, also quiet.

John paused, watching the countryside roll by as they got closer to the city.  “So, do you think there’ll be other exceptions?”

Sherlock considered.  “I don’t know,” he said finally.  “Any...exceptions…would have to fit with my Work.  If there were a way for such involvement to not take away from the Work but to complement it, I might consider it.”

It wasn’t what John looked for in a woman; in fact, he enjoyed relationships that made him forget about work.  No wonder it had been so long, if that was Sherlock’s criterion for female companionship.

Sherlock Holmes with a girlfriend.  Hell, Sherlock Holmes with emotions, with physical needs.  The thought seemed so strange to John, albeit maybe not as strange as it did when they first lived together.  John pondered the possibility. Sometimes John forgot that, behind the sometimes-odd mannerisms and the always-brilliant brain, Sherlock was human just like everyone else.  He thought that even Sherlock forgot that.

It was so like Sherlock to think of everything in terms of the Work.  And yet, there was just this hint, this crack in the façade that hinted that Sherlock might one day let someone in.  Clearly, if the encounter with The Woman had done anything positive, it was making Sherlock revisit a part of himself that he had locked away for too long. John found himself hoping for that kind of connection for his friend on the terms that Sherlock wanted.

“It’s out there, mate,” John said. 

“Perhaps,” Sherlock agreed. And the two continued to ride on in silence toward London.

**Author's Note:**

> I am firmly in the camp of believing in a heterosexual Sherlock who isn't a virgin, but who nonetheless may not be quite the sexual prodigy he probably thinks he is. A long dry spell, even of his own making, could certainly make him a bit "rusty" and shy of getting involved, even without him technically being a virgin, which I find relatively implausible.
> 
> At the end of this piece, I leave open the possibility of a relationship for Sherlock, so long as it doesn't compromise the Work. I think that the crime solving date he had with Molly in TEH and the fake-but-probably-fun relationship he had with Janine in HLV share something in common: They are both examples of Sherlock allowing himself to skirt close to a "normal" relationship with a woman he likes or finds entertaining under the guise of doing it for the Work. In future stories, I'd like to explore this further, but, right now, I'm still as confused as Sherlock about the immediate possibilities for his love life!


End file.
